


Sweet Nightingale

by BlueberryPaincake



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different Mastermind (Dangan Ronpa), F/M, mm kiyo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27437551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueberryPaincake/pseuds/BlueberryPaincake
Summary: “Sing for me.”And oh, how she sings.
Relationships: Shinguji Korekiyo/Tojo Kirumi
Comments: 5
Kudos: 14





	Sweet Nightingale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deltanox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltanox/gifts).



It wasn’t about her. At first.

At some point they faded out. Their fear, their hope, every expression, every reaction, was slowly muffled, and soon altogether drowned out by her song in his head.

From the start she intrigued him. Of course, they all did, each of their idiosyncrasies, goals, dreams, hopes, fears, but she entered claiming none of those vices. He smirked behind his teacup, mind ready to hear her song, to dissect it, to read her like sheet music.

Unlike the others, her song was soft, eloquent, melodious without being overbearing. It didn’t boast nor preen and puff its plume, not like the others. Rather it appeared unassuming, down pristine and alluringly dignified, but taking a closer look, a second listen, exposed the flash of an eye that bore into the world. A second listen and the notes would shift, warp and bend, each clef and quaver slipping by, bewitchingly escaping his grasp.

She serves him tea once more at his behest. Her head remains bowed, posture inscrutable as she sets the table. Oh, and when she speaks… each syllable dances from her tongue, sounding as delectable as the flavor of his tea, a subtle, sublime hint of something more.

But she eludes him. And when the first bird falls, she remains enigmatic. 

Working together with the others, she is drowned out by their brash cacophony of clashing notes. He aids them, speaking only when spoken to, so as not to let a note slip out of place, just in case her own escaped his notice.

The second bird is shot, and the unflappable nightingale’s song wavers. The others wail and howl, lamenting the loss of one of the loudest songs, so falsely clear and promising, promising things her song lacked. 

He bows his head, lowering his brim as he watches her nearly reach out past her gilded cage. Her gaze falls, hands tremble though she does her best to hold on. Her paper crinkles, but the notes, the string of staffs and ledgers, remain fixed. Even as the world crinkles, her song continues, low and soft and even. All the while the others brazenly and crudely blubber on. He wishes for more stones to silence them.

Three sharp raps sound from his door. A green eye peeks up at him, steadily eyeing his plume and his performance. Thankfully he has rehearsed, and observes her with the same critical eye. She offers him food, care, and whatever else she may provide. 

Again fluttering notes spring past his ears, making him near frantically reach up to grab them. Only his hand hovers near her cheek, centimeters from her delicate skin and widened eyes. Her ballad halts in their frozen moment, nothing but silence echoes out into the hall. Clearing his throat, he regrettably strikes a chord, coaxing her to relax with a low, beguiling melody-- matching the actions of his hands. He thanks her for her time, sure to toss in a heaping amount of praise with it, and watches her go, his sweet nightingale, her tune a bit quieter than before.

The notes play over and over in his ears, changing and slipping in and out of minim and crotchet and quaver and semiquaver and hemisemidemiquaver and demisemihemidemisemiquaver-- until they fade out leaving his fingers outstretched in the dead of night. He changes her motive, adorns her cage in ornate gems, just so she may remain long enough to sing again.

And still it isn’t enough.

One stone has never felt so light. The once subdued, grounded cello’s strings snap. He eyes the detective. In a hushed tone he brings to her the lost silver button she replaced for him earlier, and her eyes glitter with interest but brows lower in disappointment. 

Once simple whole notes and rests morph into deranged, crippled, and anxiously timed music, grating against his ears as the detective grows more and more frenzied. It grows almost overbearingly loud until a soft, single quaver cuts through the discord. She utters nothing more than a few words, near regret written across her face as the small round button glints in the trial room light.

And just like that, everything is just the smallest bit quieter. He leans in, past the horror filled gazes and sobs of the others, past the lifeless body at the bottom of the cliff, past the noise, noise, noise. Her eyes appear to glisten, and he listens as her song only grows more quiet. 

Demisemiquaver to crochet to sharp to double sharp to whole rest to half rest to semibreve to quasihemidemisemiquaver to beamed notes to octuples to hemisemidemisemihemiquaver to-

She insists they eat together. His nightingale takes the helm and it’s sweet and good and clear and familiar and-

His voice is  _ grating _ against the follicles of his hair. The  _ trumpet _ does not belong in an orchestra. A rousing speech has each one’s anthem blaring out to the world, and all the while his nightingale smiles and plays sparingly, making the smallest bit of room to let their ensemble shriek within their cage.

A word here, the passing on of a small bottle of virulent honey there, he is sure to keep it far from her fingers, and three useless, boorish fowls are silenced. What he wouldn’t give to silence the rest.

It's late at night. The slight simulated, stolen light of the inconstant moon streams into the building. She retires late, her song barely a peep in the lullaby of nightime. Yet still, her greeting is nonetheless pleasant, slightly hoarse and fallacious, but still a soothing natural. Entranced, he seizes his moment, listening with a strained ear as he coaxes it from her lips.

Its deceptive, flats and ghost notes attempt to mislead him, shift his focus from its contents. But he’s so lost in following the staff that she grows defensive, and what was perhaps a flat- no, a natural?- shifts to a sharp accidental, breaking him from the moment. Bright green eyes pierce his as they stand almost nose to nose. The corner of the hallway beneath the stairs keeps her gripping her broom defensively, ready to strike his hand, that of which has lifted her hair from her face. Hollow apologies, and she walks away, her song both louder and more intangible than ever before.

He is left in mourning, and vows he will hear it one day. He will hear it if he has to silence every other being in here, until there is nothing but her to fill his mind, her gilded cage.

A cockatiel and bluejay hover around her. They sing sweet nothings and poisonous words, attempting to bend her song to accommodate their own, while a disgrace upon the earth caws loudly between them. As conductor he directs their attention to one another, their heads following his baton foolishly, and they rip into flesh violently, their talons dripping with blood. 

Their numbers dwindle. Despite his role of maestro, he eagerly watches as she begins to take her rightful place as star of his very own concert, one where all the seats are empty and reserved for only himself. 

Yet.

Each day she gently guides the others to their proper roles, and each day he grows more and more frantic at how she labels them proper only because she lets them drown her out. Their dissolving, shattered, pitiable excuses for songs batter against the inside of his skull like jackhammers against concrete. No, no, nO, NO,  **NO!** He will not yield to their incessant cries for attention. Her sheet music still beckons him, still fills him with an insatiable need to know, to analyze this enigma who is only heard when others are drowning her out.

Frustrated, he stalks about the hallway in front of her dorm, a place he often comes to hoping to catch an inkling of a breve or a split second of a tremolo. There's a slight creak. He scurries away from the door. She steps out, brandishing a kitchen knife. 

Her voice is even, only shaking at the end of her words, as she tells him to leave before she calls the others. Titling his head curiously, he catches his footing, stepping forward, closer and closer despite the way she holds out her knife with the intent to kill-- should the need arise. The point presses against his chest as he pushes her boundaries, keeping his hands up to persuade her from outright calling the others. 

Despite her original surefire gaze, she hesitates and steps back, squinting at him as she tries to discern his intent. He lowers his mouth to her ear and- oh her song, so paradoxically quiet yet deafening in the hallway they occupy. Shaky hands obscure the pitch, but the notes… he can follow them. He wishes nothing more than to follow them to their point of origin, rip them from her vocal cords one by one and lay them out, bloody and gory, upon his table so he may mount them on the walls of his mind, carve away her skin to reveal the hard tissue and muscle and sinew of her body to uncover her melody, to understand her inside and out. 

If only…

He whispers a single note into her ear; just slightly caressing her jaw with his fingers as he steps back and leaves her.

This game is taking far too long. He is on the hunt, and the others- with their perpetual out of tune psalms- are no longer needed for this performance. 

She takes it as well as she can, his sweet nightingale, but her trembling hands do little to stifle the flood of heaving and nervous notes that come from her lips following the loud crash of her platter. A head rolls onto his plate, the force of the axe enough to propel it forward. His mask hides the triumphant grin that shamelessly crinkles his eyes. 

The last bird is shot from the sky, now all that remains is him and his sweet nightingale. He approaches her, ready to hear her serenade now that there are no others to lean on her steady song. 

She steps away from her podium and rushes to the door, refusing him what is rightfully his own. Crashing, thundering, locked doors. The maestro points to her, his only performer, and what can she do but heed his command. His hand snakes up to her shoulder, trapping her against the wires of her confines.

“Sing for me.”

And oh, how she sings. How can sobs so clearly play a song despite their lack of structure? He presses his ear to her throat. The rumble of tumbling notes floods his mind like a prayer leaves a sinners lips. There is nothing now-- not a flat or a sharp nor a ghost note or a rest-- left to hide her melodious ballad. 

Four simple notes. Four simple notes. Ties and slurs and stems and wholes and four notes. 

Dies illa. 

Now he sees it. In every line, every staff, every space-- every set is Dies illa. She tried to hide it-- such a pity, such a  _ sin _ to think a melody this refined, this divine, should be smothered by others’ songs. His fingers wrap around her throat, trembling with effort as he squeezes the notes from her like air from her lungs. Each one rings out, one by one, as she claws and kicks at him.

He only wants to listen.

But her call brings death to him like a knife to his side, and with each note he desperately clings to her with bloodied and shaking fingers. He just wants to listen one more time. Death rests a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Just once more.”

Dies illa.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is why my fae story has been on hold. If you enjoyed this please take a look at Deltanox's dual mm story, their tones are similar.


End file.
